RICOH ARENA

The 'Ricoh Arena', home to Coventry City F.C., is a complex situated in the Foleshill district of the city of Coventry, containing a 32,000 seater football stadium, a 6,000 square-metre exhibition hall, a hotel, a leisure club and a planned casino. The site is also home to a retail park containing one of Europe's biggest Tesco stores. The site was previously home to Foleshill's gasworks.

Contents

Inaugural events

History and background

Highest attendances

References

External links

Inaugural events

The arena became the venue for Coventry City's home games at the start of the 2005-06 season, following 106 years at the Highfield Road stadium. The first competitive football match played at the Ricoh Arena was against Queens Park Rangers on 20 August 2005, in front of a reduced (for safety reasons) 23,000 capacity crowd. The game ended 3-0 to Coventry, with Claus Bech Jørgensen becoming the first player to score at the arena. Hull City became the first away team to win at the Ricoh, snatching a 2-0 win on 24 September 2005, with both goals coming from John Welsh.
The first concert held at the arena was Bryan Adams on 23 September 2005. The bar in the Eon Lounge, overlooking the pitch, was named 'The Bryan Adams Bar' after the Canadian rocker. Bon Jovi played there live on June 7 2006 (35,000 attendance), as did Red Hot Chili Peppers on July 2 2006 (40,000). For both the Bon Jovi and Red Hot Chili Peppers concerts, the fans were able to stand on the pitch. However, after both events, many of those who attended complained that the road system was flawed, with some claiming to have waited over an hour to leave the car park. This is also hastened by the fact that an application for a train station very close to the stadium was rejected, which the complex genuinely needed. The venue played host to the Heineken Cup semifinal match between Northampton Saints and London Wasps on Sunday 22 April 2007.
The arena was opened officially by Dame Kelly Holmes and Sports Minister Richard Caborn on 24 February 2007.

History and background

Permission for the ground's construction was given in the spring of 1999, with a targeted completion date of August 2001. This deadline was not met by almost four years.
The original design for the arena was for a 45,000 seater stadium with a retractable roof, and a pitch that could slide out to reveal a hard floor for concerts. After Coventry City's relegation, a number of contractor/financier withdrawals and England's bid to host the 2006 World Cup finals ended in failure, the plans were signifcantly downsized.
On Friday 6 October 2006, the Arena hosted its first international football game when the England U-21 team played the German U-21 team in the first leg of a European U21 Championship qualifying play-off. England won the game 1-0, with the winning goal scored by Leighton Baines.
The name comes from a sponsorship deal, rumoured to be worth £10 million over 10 years, with camera and photocopier manufacturer Ricoh, though during construction the stadium was variously referred to as the Jaguar Arena, Arena Coventry and Arena 2000. The sponsorship deal with Ricoh came about after the stadium's initial sponsor, the motor firm Jaguar, was forced to pull-out due to the same financial difficulties that had caused the controversial closure of the large Jaguar assembly plant at the city's Brown's Lane, previously a major source of employment in Coventry.
The Arena is run by Arena Coventry Limited (ACL) and is separate from the running of Coventry City Football Club who are the Arenas first tenants. It was funded largely by Coventry City council & the Higgs Charity (of which CCFC and ACL director Sir Derek Higgs is a trustee), and includes shopping facilities, a casino, exhibition halls and a concert venue.
At the end of the 2006-2007 Championship season in May 2007, the stadium had still not achieved a capacity 32,600 crowd. In fact, the stadium's highest attendance for a home game had been some 4,000 short of full capacity back in February 2006 during an FA Cup match against Premiership side Middlesbrough.
Critics have maintained that stadium is simply too large for a club which for several years has underperformed in the second-tier of English football and that a 25,000 seater stadium would have sufficed (the former Highfield Road stadium had a 23,600 capacity and was rarely sold-out). Most match days see the stadium only 55% to 60% full. However, the stadium's capacity was based on Coventry's rapid promotion to the Premiership (and therefore bigger attendances), which has not yet transpired.
In July-August 2007, the stadium was to host pre-season friendly games against Spanish La Liga side (and 2007 UEFA Cup finalists) Espanyol and Italian Serie A side Udinese in a major coup for the club.

Highest attendances

★ 30,812 England U21 v Germany U21 (Qualifier)

★ 28,600 Coventry v Middlesbrough (FA Cup)

★ 27,216 Coventry v Birmingham City (league)

References

External links

★ WorldStadiums.com entry